Lord of the Rings Online MMO News, Guides, and Features at Ten Ton Hammer

As The Lord of the Rings Online prepares for its September 10th switch into the free-to-play gaming realm, Turbine is helping players get ready with a new set of articles detailing some of the new features and even providing a starter guide for the new LotRO Store. This brief guide offers players a quick look at the store and its features with a simple how-to explanation on buying.

In addition to the new guide, Turbine has also posted a new developer diary detailing some of the new crafting changes slated for Volume III: Book 2. Weaponmith and Woodworking professions will be getting some improvements with the update and a number of older reputation recipes will be getting revised because many of them were a bit lackluster and not worth the grind. A number of other changes will also be implemented such as changes to the mastery and critical success of crafting items.

A third article to note is a new developer diary that explains the new Lua Scripting, which details the new user-created UI customization options. While the devs didn't get all the things they wanted in for the free-to-play launch, they have a good start on improving the customization options of players.